The Congress and the NCP are not comfortable with the name Maha Shiv Aghadi (a grand alliance comprising the Shiv Sena)
'What we see here is puppetry. The string is with the BJP.' 'All the puppets here are dancing to the direction the BJP pulls the strings.'
There is palpable disappointment within a section of Young and Aspirational India that has come to identify with Centre Right economic thinking and had looked up to the BJP to advance that agenda in the years to come, says Shashi Shekhar.
A purported video of Lok Janshakti Party president Chirag Paswan rehearsing for a video message a day after the death of his father, one of the foremost Dalit leaders Bihar produced after Jagjivan Ram, has gone viral.
He added that the rival parties had tried to project the Bharatiya Janata Party as communal and therefore "untouchable" but the people realised that the party stood for their welfare.
Union minister Rajeev Chandrashekar on Tuesday rejected Dorsey's claim, calling it an "outright lie" and "an attempt to brush out that very dubious period" of firm's history.
One of the other key takeaways of the manifesto is setting up a separate maintenance department for the national and state highways, where repairs and other works are currently done by the road construction contractors.
Medical seats for under-graduates and post-graduates remaining vacant in the NEET era, together with the Centre 'freezing' the number of medical colleges and seats in (Dravidian) Tamil Nadu and the launch of the PM's 'Vishwakarma Scheme' for the nation's craftsmen, are all seen as a bid to further reverse the state's progressive socio-economic agenda of and its achievements of the past hundred-plus years, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The BJP will be the ruling party.'
Allies since the 1990s, the JD-U and the BJP have in the recent past squabbled on issues ranging from Agnipath, caste census, population law and ban on loudspeakers.
The ruling Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab on Wednesday filed a complaint with the state director general of police, seeking a thorough probe into allegations of an attempt by the Bharatiya Janata Party to topple its government.
In a tweet, the party said Ram Temple was not on the agenda of Shah during his one-day trip to Hyderabad.
After breathing fire over 'love jihad', Bharatiya Janata Party dropped any mention of it in the political resolution at its two-day state executive meet that concluded on Sunday.
The Hindu Yuva Vahini, floated by its firebrand leader and Lok Sabha member Yogi Adityanath, has fielded candidates against the saffron party in six assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh.
'It would indeed be difficult for someone from outside the Gandhi family to run the party'
'There was a lot of resentment against the BJP which has not translated into votes, this is surprising.'
'We don't feel that the law and order situation will turn bad because of our agitation.'
'UCC should be across India and legally applicable to every Indian citizen.'
Underlining the Bharatiya Janata Party's commitment to cultural development of the country, party president J P Nadda on Monday said that contentious religious matters would be decided by "courts and the Constitution" and the party would implement the decisions in letter and spirit.
Bharatiya Janata Party MP Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday defied a ban on his election meeting in Lucknow by addressing it and accused the SP government of following a communal agenda.
Among other issues expected to figure during Jaitley's interaction with BJP leaders here is election of party's state unit president.
Mufti Mohammad Sayeed will be sworn-in as the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir for the second time on Sunday heading the Peoples Democratic Party-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition government.
'The BJP has taken too much of credit for sweeping urban local elections.' 'It is true in the mayor segment. But in the smaller cities, semi-urban and rural areas, the BJP has done badly and so have the other parties.' 'Nobody can claim they have swept the elections.' 'What Mayawati failed miserably to do in the assembly election, she has managed to gain that in this election.'
Campaigning came to an end on Saturday for the single-day election in Uttarakhand and Goa, two states known for political volatility where the Bharatiya Janata Party is attempting to retain power, and for the second phase of assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh on February 14.
As per the preliminary estimates, the BJP has significantly improved its national vote share from 31.34 per cent in 2014 to a new record high, while there appeared to be only a marginal change in case of the Congress from its 19.5 per cent score of the last elections.
'Most leaders, from Lalu Yadav and Mamata to M K Stalin, respect and trust Sonia. She should continue unless she expressly declines.'
"BJP leaders are playing the game at the behest of central leaders. MLAs were offered money... Rs 10 crore in advance and Rs 15 crore after the government is toppled," the chief minister alleged and added that the BJP wants to convert the state's politics into a goat market, 'bakra mandi'.
The Janata Dal-United supremo, however, also appeared annoyed with parliamentary board chief Upendra Kushwaha who had recently jumped the gun with the insinuation that the RJD could be trying to 'further the Bharatiya Janata Party's agenda' by refraining from taking action against the minister.
What should be made out of the Madras high court order involving non-Hindus' entry into Hindu temples, when many non-Hindus are among the hundreds of thousands that have been worshipping at these temples for generations, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Arrested in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, she was given a clean chit by the National Investigation Agency, but the trial court refused to discharge her from the case.
"He is lodged in the prison in connection with a rape case and sections of the Pocso Act. Rinku is not a physiotherapist," the sources said.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, headed by senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, had called representatives of Facebook to hear their views "on the subject of safeguarding citizens' rights and prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms including special emphasis on women security in the digital space," according to agenda of the meeting.
'We should not use and confuse the word Right to define Hindutva.' 'Doing so blurs the issue because it gives the BJP attributes that it does not have and does not even want,' says Aakar Patel.
Though the Congress, AAP and other Opposition parties may have high hopes and some positive takeaways to seize on from the results, it is the BJP which has a big headstart and is firmly in the lead.
'You have done your best for the party, but the party has moved on. Bow out gracefully, quit politics and work on a one-point agenda -- to bring about an amicable solution to the Ayodhya issue.' Sajid Bhombal pens an open letter to BJP patriarch LK Advani
The 'Angh' of Oting, Tahwang, is contesting the February 27 assembly polls on a Naga People's Front (NPF) ticket against the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party MLA P Paiwang Konyak, who is a cabinet minister in the outgoing government.
'When Uddhav Thackeray went in for surgery, he had presumed that Eknath Shinde would have looked after the Shiv Sena for him during this period.' 'He did not imagine that Shinde would use this period to backstab him.'
The new minister must commit himself to supporting long-term defence plans or else defence modernisation will continue to lag and the growing military capabilities gap with China will assume ominous proportions, warns Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
Sharad Pawar reckons that the NCP has value as a united, going concern, not as a gaggle of leaders in search of followers, notes Shreekant Sambrani.
'In Maharashtra he didn't buckle under pressure.' 'We expect him to do the same as the CBI Director.'
